Strategies for Cardiovascular Prevention Related to a National Cardiac Health Policy

This article reviews the options of prevention strategies for the purpose of developing a rational policy for cardiovascular health in Turkish adults. Individual (high-risk) strategy should be combined with a population strategy, for which estimates of population-attributable risk of 7 major risk factors for our adults were provided, based on the data of the Turkish Adult Risk Factor Study. The targeted population may be narrowed to men aged ?40 and women aged ?45 years. Based on the existence of significant differences in the risk profile of Turkish from Western adults, it would be appropriate to incorporate some adjustments to the national guidelines in adopting from the international guidelines in areas of the metabolic syndrome, abdominal obesity and normal limit of total cholesterol. Governments should be convinced firmly that lending importance and priority to cardiovascular health protection is cost-effective and indispensible, and they should both raise the share of prevention within the health expenditure and develop a related convincing policy. It is also required to conform to criteria of cost-effectiveness in areas of interventional and noninterventional treatment. (Türk Kardiyol Dern Arş 2004; 32: 596-602)